And to show the truant people where their duty should have
bound them, the haze had been thickening all over the sea, while the sun
kept the time on the old church dial. This was spoken of for many years,
throughout the village, as a Scriptural token of the proper thing to do.
"Well, and what have 'e seen?" asked the senior church-warden--not
Cheeseman, who was only the junior, and had neither been at church
nor on the headland--but Farmer Graves, the tenant of the Glebe and of
Up-farm, the Admiral's best holding; "what have 'e seen, good people
all, to leave parson to prache to hisself a'most a sarmon as he's
hathn't prached for five year, to my knowledge? Have 'e seen fat bulls
of Basan?"
"Naw; but us have heer'd un roar," replied one who was sure to say
something. "Wust of it is, there be no making out what language un do
roar in."
"One Englishman, I tell 'e, and two Frenchmen," said an ancient tar who
had served under Keppel; "by the ring of the guns I could swear to that
much. And they loads them so different, that they do."
Before the others had well finished laughing at him, it became his turn
to laugh at them. The wind was in the east, and the weather set fair,
and but for the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to
dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off,
coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging
still to any bluff or cliff it could lay hold on.
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